Defending The Union

If Steve King is so worried about Union soldiers and abolitionists not receiving their due, he could turn his attention to the myriad of statues, parks, highways, buildings, cemeteries and other monuments dedicated to honoring Confederate soldiers, slaveholders and others who profited from and defended that despicable practice.

For example, he could introduce legislation requiring that Robert E. Lee's house be burned to the ground, and that ground salted to remain forever barren, as a fitting memorial to a man whose peculiar, yet inexplicably celebrated, sense of honor required him to betray his stated oaths of service to the USA in favor of unstated and, until he had the opportunity to act according to them, unknown oaths of service to the state of Virginia once its people had declared war upon their fellow citizens.  Once this is accomplished, I have many more ideas on how we as a nation can make sure that Union soldiers and abolitionists are more highly honored than Confederate traitors.

Comments

[low-tech cyclist]

You're judging Lee in the context of the post-Civil War era, Stephen.

It's one thing to say that slavery was clearly wrong then - which it was, and its Southern supporters knew it, which was why they objected so strongly to the very discussion of the issue.

But in 1860, the question of whether states could come and go into and out of the Union as they pleased was by no means a settled question. It took the war itself to answer that one.

So calling Confederates traitors is unreasonable. Their sin is in having fought for the right to treat other humans as pieces of property. That is more than enough to condemn their memories.

[Sir Charles]

Stephen,

You know Lee's house is the site of Arlington National Cemetary, so others beat you to this idea.

Sometime you'll have to visit Richmond and view the series of statues of Confederate generals on Monument Avenue -- Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, and Stonewall Jackson, along with Jefferson Davis. It will drive you crazy.

As for King's preposterous claim, he obviously hasn't driven around DC much -- there are numerous statues of Civil War generals at the various traffic circles named in their honor including Grant, Sheridan, Sherman, Garfield, Thomas, and DuPont (an admiral), not to mention the modest memorial to old Abe.

l-t c,

I don't know that there is a legitimate claim that states could take up arms against the federal government even prior to the Civil War. It seems to me that the more reasonable view of this is that it was treason, unless you subscribed to the world view of John C. Calhoun, which was not by any means a majority view.

[Joe]

The worst part of salting the ground where Lee lived is that the United States eventually had to pay for the land that became Arlington Cemetery after expropriating it-- thanks to the post-civil war Supreme Court. See (in part) U.S. V. Lee, 109 U.S. 196 (1882). Therefore, salting the ground would be adding insult to injury, or more appropriately "pouring salt on a wound."

[Sir Charles]

Joe,

Thanks for that. I was unaware of that case (the cite is actually 106 U.S. 196).

I would be curious what the reaction was like at the time, a mere 17 years after the war ended.

[oddjob]

I would be curious what the reaction was like at the time, a mere 17 years after the war ended.

In 1882? By then Chester Arthur was president (Garfield had been assassinated). That was five years after the GOP had sold its soul in order to make Rutherford Hayes president in 1877. The election of Hayes only occurred because that was an electoral tie and thus turned over to the House of Representatives. It was months of wrangling before the GOP decided to no longer be "the party of Lincoln", to no longer be the country's truly radical party, the party of abolition, and decided instead to be the party of big business as long as it meant they won the election and had control of the White House.

Reaction? My guess is that the reaction in 1882 was shrugged shoulders. The GOP had the White House and the Dems. had the South.

[oddjob]

Don't forget that 17 years is a generation's time. During that time there had already been all the chaos of Reconstruction, the take-no-prisoners attitude of the GOP House leadership under representatives such as Thaddeus Stevens (a true radical of the sort to make Abraham Lincoln look like a wimp), and the country's first impeachment and Senate trial of a president (Andrew Johnson).

By the 1880's my guess is most Americans were sick of the legacy of the Civil War and ready to "move on".